Rhubarb Ruffles (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in)

-
31 March finds me crouched over another scene of spring vigour in the Rhubarb patch.  The weather is much improved, with warm sunshine and hardly any breeze - and the Mosquitoes think so too.  They were coming up below the hand which held the canvas, near to the ground, and biting where I could not see them.  The Starlings are boasting their skills of mimicry.  I heard a Gray Tree Frog call four times, and I know it was a bird.

The ruffled leaves are gleaming with the energy of unfolding, and my whole being is drawn into the intricacies of their convolutions.  This is the only way, because approximations only result in mess.  The brain is always asking questions that the brush must answer.

I remember learning that handwriting analysts judge a tendency to end each line higher than it began on an unlined page is evidence of an optimistic personality.  Just so, spring is pushing the upper limit of my canvas.

1) Canada: Ontario: Grenville County: Oxford-on-Rideau: Bishops Mills:S side(Schuelers Transparent tree). 31B/13, UTM 18TVE 446.3 687 44.87156N 75.70059W. TIME: 1600-1822. AIR TEMP: 16, sunny, breezy. HABITAT: grassy/shaded backyard in rural village on shallow-soil limestone plain. OBSERVER: Aleta Karstad Schueler. 2010/033/ga, Rheum rhaponticum (Rhubarb) (Plant). 1 stand sprout, oil. painting of emerging leaves. A Deroceras laeve noted active under cover.

2) (same location) 2010/033/gb, Sturnus vulgaris (Starling) (Bird). 1/common call, heard. 4 Hyla versicolor mimicked calls in a series.

3) (same location) OBSERVER: Aleta Karstad Schueler, Frederick W. Schueler. 2010/033/gc, Culicidae (Mosquito) (entomological). common mature, heard, felt, seen. large black-legged picture-winged species biting freely.


This painting is available for purchase at $275. Please contact Aleta






Comments

Post a Comment

What do you think of this painting, and what do you know about the subject that I have painted?

Popular posts from this blog

Sturgeon Chute, Upper Rapids (oil on canvas, 12 x 16 in.) Sold

-
Image
1 October finds me painting at the upstream rapids of Sturgeon Chute on the Wanapite River, 6.7 kilometres northwest of Hartley Bay. To get just the right angle on the rapids, screened by flaming leaves of an overhanging Red Maple, I'm standing on a narrow grassy ledge, the small of my back leaning against a cold wall of smooth granite, with the feet of my easel only a few centimetres from the edge. About two metres below, courses the fast deep water,
Read more

Cooper Marsh Late August

-
Image
  Cooper Marsh in Late August (oil on birch panel 8 x 10 in.) 28 August 2023 found me painting on the back deck of the Visitors Centre at the Cooper Marsh Conservation Area. It's a hot day, and I'm demonstrating plein air painting as part of a workshop hosted by the Raisin Region Conservation Authority and inspired by our mussels project with the River Institute.  It's a hot day, so we stayed in the building's shade rather than venturing out into the sunny marsh. Also, the deck offers a higher view across the marsh to the thin line of the pale blue St Lawrence and the deeper hazy blue of the north shore of New York State, visible between the Poplars and Willows. An Osprey calls loudly and insistently overhead. A Red Squirrel scolds chirrs every once in a while, in irritation that we are still here, and once a Bull Frog thrums unseen, from open water somewhere out there among the yellow-green Carex or the dark green Scirpus, this side of the strip of tall, pale-plumed Ph
Read more

Little Marsh in Limerick

-
Image
"Little Marsh in Limerick" (Oil on birch panel, 6 x 6 in.) 26 December 2023 finds me capturing sunset colours through a tear in the clouds over a small Cattail marsh on Forsythe Rd, 2.3 km E of McRoberts Corner, in Limerick Forest, Grenville County, Ontario. It is 7C after rain, and the road is muddy. We’ve had a rainy Christmas with temperatures well above seasonal average. Cheryl is in the driver’s seat, watching me paint my annual birthday plein air in oils on a   6 x 6 inch cradled birch panel, trying to get it covered with paint before we lose the light and go home for supper.   This little marsh, only a few minutes from home, is a familiar scene. There are observations in Fred’s database over the course of 40 years from this spot, of Muskrat, Beaver, Snapping Turtle, Painted Turtle,  Green Frog, Great Blue Heron, and Red Squirrel. This is a few hundred metres from “Site F” where we listen each spring to monitor Wood Frogs, Gray Tree Frogs, and Spring Peepers.  Unti
Read more